A Ship to Guide Us Safely Home
by Carnicirthial
Summary: The night before the landsmeet, Alistair feels like he's drowning. Just before dawn, his fellow Warden shows him her scars and reminds him  "Duty is the ever guiding light we must march for. It guides in grief, confusion, fear, hatred, love, and mercy."


_A/N: This totally proves, at least to me, that I am far better at oneshots than sustained story telling, which makes me cry myself to sleep at night. But anyway, here it is, I finally cranked out a decent Dragon Age fanfic. Shoes, hats, and flames stay at the door, please._

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He sat up, unable to sleep. After fumbling in the dark, he found the flint and relit the candle next to the bed, the small flame illuminating a sphere of his room. Arl Eamon had changed the dining room, the tapestries in the main hall were new, the office had been refurbished, but his old room, tucked behind the study and above the kitchen, had remained unchanged. The bed seemed so small now, he missed being able to swim in the sheets after he was sent to bed like it was an ocean, just his. He missed chasing the cats around the courtyard until Breyson, the huge and ancient mabari, would bark and the boy was scamper back inside. He missed stealing cookies out of the larder and blaming Breyson. He missed the winter when he would have snowball fights with the street urchins outside the estate. He missed reading until sunset about far away adventures. Adventures were so much more fun when the blood wasn't yours, the fallen comrades weren't yours, the political turmoil wasn't yours. He knew by the last page that the evil forces would be vanquished, the bad men punished, and all the good men married or riding off for more adventures. The books didn't tell of sleeping on the dirt or soaking your socks with your own blood. Nowhere had they mentioned falling to your knees because there were so many darkspawn pressing at your shield, you thought the wave would engulf you and you'd drown in a sea of blood and bones and pain. He liked it so much better when the only sea he swam in was the massive sheets of a bed too massive for a little boy of seven.

And this night before the landsmeet, it seemed a new sea had come in at high tide to swallow him. Eamon and his fellow Warden had run themselves ragged to create a ship of words and alliances for sailing across the political ocean that lay before them, but Alistair just couldn't see how their little vessel had any hope of surviving tomorrow's storm. He didn't see how he could survive. And worst of all, it felt like he was a figurehead strapped on front of their boat. It was under his name they sailed, and he went where they told him, but once the call to abandon ship was made, he'd be the one at the bottom of the ocean. The helplessness filled him with a sense of terror he couldn't overcome, and all the dreams of drowning were robbing him of what little sleep the night had left to offer.

Maker, what was he supposed to do?

Just as he was contemplating getting dressed and disappearing into the night, the door to his room cracked imperceptibly, just enough to let the figure of a woman pour herself into the golden sphere before clicking the old oak closed once more. He'd grown so used to seeing her only armored or naked, and only naked by what light from the campfire filtered in through the canvas tent, it was pleasing, calming even, to see her in a oversized shift, cream colored and falling down around her shoulders. She kept tugging it up to her neck, pulling it up from her calves to her thighs, uncovering her body like a soft tide coming in and out. This ocean he wouldn't mind exploring, if he wasn't so preoccupied.

"Can't sleep either?" she murmured, her voice playful.

Elbows resting on his knees, he began examining the floor, searching for familiar marks that had been long since buffed out of the old wood. She was so beautiful, so cunning, and so confidant. He couldn't bear to look at her, he didn't deserve her, especially not now when he'd just considered running. What would she think of that? Even his wit failed him, he could think of nothing to say, lamely muttering. "Stomach's bothering me."

She grinned. "Too much cheese, I think. Perhaps I should leave you to your indigestion." He said nothing, still not looking up. "Alistair?"

She crossed the small room in a handful of steps and kneeled softly before him, craning her neck to see his face. "What's wrong?"

He took a shuttering breath. "I… I feel like I'm about to drown. I feel like the landsmeet tomorrow is going to swallow me up and you and Eamon will swim to shore because you know how to do these things and I'm going to sink like a bunch of stones."

She nodded, her unreadable thinking face replacing the flirty grin she'd walked in with. "You are afraid that our groundwork won't be sufficient to sway the nobility."

He began to nod, then shrugged. "I suppose. Anora and her father won't give in to a simple vote; they're too ruthless."

"There will probably be violence, yes. But that's not what's scaring you."

He scratched furiously at his scalp. "No, violence I understand. Politics… I think that's the ocean trying to swallow me." She looked perplexed at the extended metaphor. "Never mind. It's just that…"

She reached forward, and when no part of his body moved to meet her hand, she began stroking his naked shin with her thumb nail. Though it was so small, the smoothness was calming, it reminded him of the ring he wore on his thumb. "It's just that you don't understand the intricacies of ruling? You don't understand the battle we fight tomorrow, and that unnerves you because you can't see the different outcomes." She smiled, intending to be reassuring. "But Eamon and I understand. By this time tomorrow, I get to call you 'majesty.'"

He groaned and hid his face in his hands. "That could quite possibly be the worst outcome of them all, and I'm sure there's a million."

Her brow furrowed, and from between the cage of his fingers he could see she did not understand. "You don't want Loghain or Anora on the throne, do you?"

"No, I want Loghain dead!" He realized he might have shouted when she flinched a little. Lowering his voice, he added, "He's a traitor and a coward and the whole reason we're in this mess. Anora… she could probably rule, and things probably wouldn't get worse. But they wouldn't get better."

She waited patiently for him to continue.

"But the scariest thing about the landsmeet tomorrow, is that I can't win, no matter what. If Anora gets the throne, there's a good likelihood she'll have me executed so no one can raise a rebellion in my name, right?"

She hesitated before acknowledging, "It's a small possibility, yes."

"So we lose and I end up dead. Or you and Eamon have your way and I end up on the throne. The rest of my life become one landsmeet after another, and the whole ocean of politics that I don't understand spreads out before me. I don't know the first thing about this, but you're going to have me captain a ship alone out into the great unknown. I'm going to sink. I'm going to sink and take the whole blighted thing with me."

Her hand stopped stroking his shin and came to rest on his knee. "Are we talking about a boat, or Ferelden?"

He only moaned and dropped his hands between his knees, staring at them like he was already drowning. "I don't want to be king," he whispered.

"Alistair."

He didn't reply.

"Alistair, look at me please."

He looked up, and she realized his eyes were rimmed with a panicked red. She scooted forward on her knees, the shift tugging down around her shoulders again, and sat between his legs, her upturned face filling his view. Softly, she placed his hands on her neck and cradled his face in her palms.

"Alistair, did you think we would hand you a kingdom and let you flounder around ruling by yourself?" She smiled and shook her head. "I love you, but when you get a notion into your head, changing it is like trying to divert a river. Eamon and I both care for you, and we care for Ferelden. We won't leave you to this by yourself, we'll be with you every step of the way, I promise."

One small tear fell from his eye and landed on his lap. They both stared at the small wet spot for a moment before regaining eye contact. He was only slightly less terrified. "I don't want to be king," he whispered again. "I can't do it."

She sat back on her heels, examining him for a moment, then climbed up onto the bed where she was in the greatest amount of light. Sitting with her legs crossed in front of her, she pulled the shift off. Her alabaster skin shone in the candlelight, the golden hue making her look like a gilded statue.

He sighed, depressed that she could think of no better consolation than sex, but moved toward her anyway.

She held up a hand. "No, just wait. I want to tell you something. You know this scar?" She pointed to the large jagged circle just below her ribs. The edges were tattered and frayed like a bad patch, the scar tissue smooth and shiny. The last bits of scab had finally come off, he noticed. The gaping wound had been from a shriek's blade thrust right through her small frame and out the back. The Maker, or luck, had deemed her unready to die, though, and the blade had missed her spine. The thing had healed faster than Wynne thought possible, but even still he noticed that the place was tender and she moved with a new weariness.

Alistair nodded. He didn't like thinking about the screams she'd made while Wynne and Morrigan had worked on her broken body, or the hours after she lay delirious with fever, clutching at his chest like it was the only thing keeping her from the Fade.

"I got it in service of the Grey Wardens, chasing down that blighted Bronka so we could have our reinforcements. What about this one?" She pointed to a thick line cut across her clavicle.

"A werewolf in the Brecillian forest." That one had spurted blood while she fought. He reached out and rubbed a thumb against the smooth skin, sad she couldn't feel his touch there.

"Right. For the Wardens again. And this one?" She pulled up her hair and revealed a burn the size of a sovereign at the nape of her neck, interrupting her hairline.

"The high dragon outside the Temple of Andraste's Ashes." The hot fire of it's breath had rained down on them, but in his armor and behind his shield he'd been better equipped to take the blow than she. Seeing the blast coming, he'd grabbed her and dove, tucking her between a rock and his body the best he could. Still, one lick of flame had gotten her. He'd never even noticed it until it healed.

"For Eamon, our friend and ally of the Wardens. This one?" She grabbed his hand and ran a finger down a long line down her thigh. An abomination, in its dying throes, had clawed up her as she passed, thinking it dead. She'd shoved her dagger through its eye and kept walking even as Wynne tried healing it.

"The mages tower." He wrapped a hand around her thigh. He'd never noticed, probably equal parts stupidity, blind lust, and bad lighting, that her whole body was mottled with scars. Lines, crisscrossing up her legs and her stomach, burns, dotting her arms and knees, abrasions, patches of whiter skin over her shoulders. "I never noticed how many scars you have."

She smiled. "They've grown exponentially since I met Duncan." She began pointing to the different spots and lines. "For the Wardens. For the Wardens. For the Wardens. And here. And here and here. But I have two favorites."

He frowned. "Favorite scars? Isn't that like having favorite taxes? Or a favorite natural disaster?"

She smiled wider, and twisted so he could see her left shoulder blade. "See this one?" He touched it gently with the hand not wrapped in her legs. "It's the first I ever got for the Grey Wardens. When Duncan sent you and us new recruits out into the Wilds to fetch the treaties and tainted blood, do you remember being attacked by a handful of hurlocks and a gemlock archer? Just over the first crest, there was a fallen tree with three men hanging from it."

He thought for a moment, but shook his head.

"First time I'd ever even seen the darkspawn, and I was shaking so hard I thought my bones would fall out. But you just charged up the hill and started hitting everything in sight, so I followed after. I turned at just the right moment, Maker or luck, and saw the gemlock pulling his bowstring taut and aiming straight for your neck. I jumped up and back as hard as I could and caught the blighted thing in my shoulder."

Alistair rubbed the scar with new meaning. "You never said anything."

She nodded. "I was proud of myself. It was my first battle wound for the Grey Wardens, and I'd taken it deliberately for a comrade. I thought you'd laugh at me or make a joke, and I thought Jory would scold me for not letting someone with thicker armor take the blow, so I savored it by myself. And by savor, I mean I pulled it out as fast as I could and tried not to itch it until we were back in camp."

Alistair smiled and kissed her scar. "You're right, I probably would have made a joke."

She smiled and kissed his lips gently. "Would you like to see the other one?"

He nodded, and kissed her once more.

The last scar was nothing spectacular compared to her others. It was a small line, no thicker than the gold chain around her neck, down the left side of her forehead, slanting diagonally and ending just before her right brow. It was faded and small, probably something she'd had since childhood. "I got this the night my parents died," she whispered, the pain of memory thick in her voice. "Howe's men were waiting as we turned the corner, just outside the kitchen where my father was waiting. There were two archers, a berserker, and two mabaris. My own dog attacked the berserker, mauling him on the ground, while my mother quickly shot a handful of arrows through the first mabari's throat. The second mabari charged her, and I rushed the archers. I killed the first one without much trouble, he was so panicked he hit me in the shoulder with his bow once I got close. The second man was a veteran, though, and knew what he was doing. He ran up the next rise and fired a shot. I wouldn't have noticed, but my mother shouted and shot at him first, the two dogs and the berserker dead already. I had enough time to turn to face him, then her arrow passed through his eye, and he let go of his own string. The arrow wobbled off its rest with enough power and aim to graze me and to leave this." She paused for a moment to swallow her emotion. He kissed this scar too, holding her head close to his as she began to talk again. "It would have healed, and it's already started to fade, but I rubbed deathroot in it to keep the scar as Duncan and I traveled for Ostagar. It reminds me of the night my mother and I fought to save each others lives, and I carry it like a piece of her, and my father too. They taught me something very important that night, Alistair."

"The use of decorative scars and potentially fatal plants rubbed on the face?" He was beginning to feel better, clearly.

She shook her head, all seriousness now. "They taught me duty in the face of danger, that despite fear of something we cannot handle and love for those we cannot bear to lose, duty is the ever guiding light we must march for. It guides in grief, confusion, fear, hatred, love, and mercy. That as long as we know our duty, we can overcome anything. I know you don't want to be king. I didn't want to be a Grey Warden. I wanted to fight to the death with my parents, and I almost tried taking a swipe at Duncan as he led me away. Even now part of me resents him, the part of me that still grieves my parents and my childhood friends. But if I hadn't pursued my duty, as a daughter and then as a Grey Warden… Well, I wouldn't have met you, for one."

He smiled and kissed her deeply, his lips expressing how grateful he was. "I am a lucky man, then. So is the rest of Ferelden, I would wager. I've got it! How about you rule, and I can be your court jester. On top of jokes, I'm a pretty decent tumbler. I once almost held a handstand."

She smiled, but shook her head. "I know your game, love. You play stupid, but you are not so dense that you didn't understand the moral of my story."

His smile fell. "You think I can do this?"

She nodded and wrapped her legs around his waist. "You are kind, compassionate, merciful, strong, and handsome to boot. You'll be better at this than you're giving yourself credit for."

He looked down, blatantly staring at her breasts. She held his chin and pulled up, clearly not done talking.

"You promise you'll stay and help me?"

She nodded and kissed his nose. "Even if you don't want me to. You'll never be rid of me, _your highness_."

He pulled her close and fell backwards, then flopped over on his chest, pinning her beneath him. "I rather like the sound of that," he murmured wickedly into her ear.


End file.
